Could Australia be powered by hot rocks?
Hot rocks deep beneath the earth's surface may be the key to a clean, "green" source of energy for Australia. That's the view of University of 新浪彩票 scientists who are working to help tap into this unused and highly valuable resource - one that could potentially revolutionise Australia's power industry as we know it. "South Australia has uniquely hot rocks. In fact, this State has some of the hottest rocks in the world," said University of 新浪彩票 geoscientist Professor Richard Hillis. Based in the Australian School of Petroleum, Professor Hillis is one of several scientists from the university working on this project. He is also a non-executive director of the company behind the proposal, Petratherm, which has successfully raised $4 million in a float and was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange last month. Rocks at hundreds of degrees Celsius can be found just a few kilometres beneath the earth's surface. Large granite bodies found in and around the Flinders Ranges are up to 25 times hotter than "normal" granites, and subsurface temperatures are unusally high in the area. "The deeper you go down into the earth, the hotter it gets. On average the temperature increases by about 30 degrees Celsius per kilometre," Professor Hillis said, "but because of our hot rocks, in some areas in South Australia we're looking at increases of more than double that average value." But how can we use those rocks to create electricity? "There's really three stages to the whole process: 1) discover hot rocks, 2) circulate water through them, and 3) use that recovered hot water to generate electricity," he said. Geological models are being used to determine exactly where the hottest rocks might be, in much the same way that science can predict the best locations for major mineral deposits, such as Olympic Dam. The most likely place for hot rock exploration is in and around the northern Flinders Ranges, which is where Petratherm has taken a number of exploration licences. The company will begin drilling a series of shallow wells - again, the same as drilling for minerals - down to about 750 metres. "At about 750 metres it will start to warm up significantly. You don't have to go all the way down to | 
